"We Don't Break for Tea!"

BWAHAHAHAHAHA I'm dyin... Fraz is killin me... that and i had a measure of relief... the ProJo don't got Fraz... if they did i may have just signed up for the damn paper...

Bedlam ball... like the games we used to make up... LFL... when no one knew the score or who won, but it was played with a footbal and we tackled and there were teams... sometimes...

Homey SB wrote a freaking novel today... holycrap that'll take some time to get through... maybe later. no maybe... definately later...

KL poppin some mad bike pics up there... i'm debating mentioning the free stiching software out there called Autostich I haven't actually used it but i've seen the results and they do panoramic pictures proud.

Almost as cool as that Russian 35mm panorma camera with the moving lens that took massive cool wide shots...

well i did pretty good - i got to Frazz (and that was way down the list of the open in tabs link set)...

lets see (yes i'm procrastinating... but i got a solid uber productive session in here a mintue ago and i'm drinkin coffee - break time. Well shoot - i just clicked through the last few tabs... butkis... nadda... 'sokay... i need to save up all the time to read SB's thesis.

LFR's entry is hanging with me... like Ghostbuster slime... and i had a major major proud dad feeling riding home last night. Sure going into a 15-25 mph headwind, up the hill on Hope from Olney to Doyle with the big kid in the back and her stuff from the day AND my stuff... SUCKED hard... but there was a sweet cacophony coming out of the trailer. She was singing... Making up words and basing it on a song. She was being creative, expressing the fun she was having riding in the trailer while her dad suffered mitily. Sure she could have been plugged into an iPod and singing along with that... no she was fully aware of the surroundings and the songs came from her.

Gets me all choked up thinking about it. So cool...

'Course i'm rocking out to Chronicles Disk 1 - and running around getting shit done i always like having tunes blasting... but on the bike... i play em in my head... if i need hill motivation i'll pick up on the rhythm of my legs and pull a song that matches that cadence...

OOOO "The Trees" just came on... The Oaks and the Maples.
Words by neil peart, music by geddy lee and alex lifeson

There is unrest in the forest
There is trouble with the trees
For the maples want more sunligh
And the oaks ignore their pleas

The trouble with the maples
(and they’re quite convinced they’re right)
They say the oaks are just too lofty
And they grab up all the light
But the oaks can’t help their feelings
If they like the way they’re made
And they wonder why the maples
Can’t be happy in their shade?

There is trouble in the forest
And the creatures all have fled
As the maples scream `oppression!`
And the oaks, just shake their heads

So the maples formed a union
And demanded equal rights
’the oaks are just too greedy
We will make them give us light’
Now there’s no more oak oppression
For they passed a noble law
And the trees are all kept equal
By hatchet,
Axe,
And saw ...

As a tree biologist and someone who's painfully aware of the social surroundings... this song has generally gotten me not unlike a few of those others i listed a while back... The whole shade tree dominace... forest succesion is really cool stuff... and unfortunately its rarely allowed to progress towards maturity... and rarely well covered in all but the few Botany courses left... plants are wicked cool.

okay - so it ain't all that great of a song but it is a far cry better written/played than most of the shit out there now. Natasha Beddingfield excepted.

The legs...

gotta comment on them. Today, even in the drenching rain, i got on the bike (damn i'm writing too much - lemme get this out and then i'll make like a tree and leaf) for the first time without the buggy heading to work. HOLY CRAP... the legs felt amazing, the bike was rockin... and this is the p-mount even. The tuggin of the trailer has certainly boosted the muscle mass... and if i can get out and spin a couple times a week to get the cadence and all that up... the strength might possibily be able to be converted to power on the bike...

That and from the looks of it there are already 3 cat 4 guys on P.Velo and if Adam De-have-no-shoes-en hooks up (and the USAC grants me the upgrade) that could actually be fun to do some road races this summer.... we'll see...

okay - between the music, coffee, and what not... i'm freaking bouncing off the FREAKING WALL.... jittery jones'n man...

catchyall later - somewhere... and even though i ain't gonna stay try today.. yall try
G

lemme add this:

In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second hand, and without examination.
- Mark Twain

Quickly

I did the open tabs (20 objects in all)
.....:.....the soft bigotry of low expectations.....:.....32sixteenA Canadian Photographers BlogAlgonquin Trips and Other ThingsComics and Editorial Cartoons: Frazz on Yahoo! NewsCTodd: /sea 'tôd/ - n.Dan Schmatzgwadzillakerrylitka.comlonefrontrangerMatt's Daily BlogModerately InsaneRide More, Talk LesssolobreakThe Mad Dog Media Whirled HindquartersThe Tree FarmTodd Wells :: ToddWells.net - HomeToo Vanilla For YouUp in AlaskaWhat I Think

there... how's that... when i got to lonefrontranger today i was blown away... great write up. Not blown away because its something new, blown away because it was written extremely well and right on the money. Fostering discovery in middle school and highschool is one thing... forcing it in elementary schools is very different. Its good i'm feeling the pressure of other things so as i don't try and write all day about it...

Thanks to PBSkidsgo.org i'm bombarded by games for now. Its a challenge to pull her away sometimes. At least its possible. And she only does it here. Oh well.

So... well today is underway... a few emails to go through - coffee is made and waiting to be consumed (i gotta let it cool for a moment... i may have asbestos hands but my mouth is a wee bit delicate).

catchyal later...

G-out, and thanks LFR for gettin somethin up so compelling i had two write something!

weekend update-ish

the workshop is hanging over my head and I know my daughter will be taking every other second and those that she doesn’t abscond will be focused on something other than this. So Sunday night update.

Missed the Saturday plethora of rides. Somewhat disappointed, but not so much. Got loads of work done, I think.

Road the Cross bike out to my bro’s… swapped it for the Quantum Pro. Giulia is to blame. And it’s the good kinda blame. I should phrase it as such that she motivated me to do it. Although, I have to say riding the Croll is fun. It’s a damn nice bike. Much faster than the paramount (what isn’t). Taking it out of the basement was shocking… even with a full bottle it was a feather…

Even with knobbie tires I managed 23-24 for about 5 miles (with crossings interrupting it) along the bike path. There was a phred acting as bait… I caught him said hello, he hung on the wheel… in the draft working hard… would get gapped and he’d catch up as I slowed down at the crossings… and he’d hang for part of it then get dropped… he turned around before I found how much farther I could have held that speed. I’m thinking not much – I’ve been pretty tired these last few days, fatigued I think… that and overwhelmed with what I have to get accomplished this next week. So this maybe an ‘off week’ maybe….

So riding back… it was a strange brunch at my bro’s no alcohol was consumed by anyone! Amazing. That and I said phuc-it and busted out a CO2 cartridge after hating that stupid little mini-pump. That one with the dual action, that I got billions of years ago when they first released it. I mean its great and all as a quick fill the tube… or find the flat.. but I carry CO2 for a reason… and I like that reason… that and I have no idea where my 3 zefal HP pumps are from the move…. And the frame pump did not fit in my messenger bag… that Silca Super Pista is too damn big.

Riding back on it was different. Kinda cool. And it’s a 55-42… actually i kinda dig it. The few hills I hit on the way back were perfectly manageable with the 42x23 (and I had the 25 in reserve). It felt a bit faster… and it is a bit lighter still.. The cross wind and the Rolf vector pro deep rims section made it fun, a wicked cross wind, but at least it wasn’t a head wind. That and it was strange using STI again. So used to dropping the hand down to the down tube to shift… kinda missed it…. For a second.

Oh and between getting loads started while the oldest rode her bike on her mother’s run I washed the Q-pro and the pmount. Yeah… I busted out the soap, the brush and the hose… washed em. The Q-pro still had Michigan dirt on it. And one little worm. Dried up of course… and hell of a lot of dust. And since I had all the stuff out I figured I’d try and wash one layer of grime off the P-mount. It looks abit better… the Q-pro is approaching the cleanliness of that bike with the derailleur jammed in the spokes but the p-mount still needs some more detailing… and they both could use a coat or two of lemon scented Pledge.

Dunno when I’ll get in to get kit… might have to wait for a week… we’ll see.

Till later – I hope everyone had a good weekend. I’m still up in the air about taking the big bike to the paceline on Tuesday (weather permitting) but I may… only maybe cause it has the gadget that tells me how fast I’m going and what time it is… that way I can better judge when the group is getting out of hand and yell at them or not… maybe the guest enforcer will be assigned and I can just be a chatty cathy… Oh I saw Rosa on the bike path and said “Hi Kate” as soon as the word Kate was out of my mouth it had a Homer moment “DOH!” that wasn’t Kate… Opps… I was and still am not the best with names… well some stick… but I still get strange looks when I go pick up the youngest and call her by her sister’s name…

On that note – peace yall….

food

finally...

its only 2pm and i'm not eating lunch.... as for Suds and his stack of waffles... LMFAO...

and food today - Gordito Burrito soft taco with steak and black beans with the super special gotta ask in code (i'm serious - sort of - you gotta be adam-ant or how ever you spell it) for the extra hot stuff... its nice... and hot... the soft taco is done and i'm about to start the baby burrito (steak and black beans and the super special extra hot sauce).

Gotta Patty O is hysterical last two days:

By Patrick O'Grady
Mad Dog Media

0 4 | 2 7 | 2 0 0 6
Gas pains

OK, it's official: Our national "leadership" is either retarded, insane or both. The New York Times reports that a GOP "relief package" for a public "dismayed by rising gasoline prices" involves a $100 "gas-tax holiday" in the form of a rebate check for each and every American family (including, presumably, their own families). This, mind you, after The Washington Post's Dana Milbank reports on three Democratic senators who drove a block from their Senate offices — in separate vehicles — to hold a photo op' at a gas station during which they railed against Big Oil. Are we really as stupid as they think we are? Maybe so. And if it's true, that we're all of us, man, woman and child, dumber than a sackful of red-white-and-blue hammers, why, then, by God, we deserve this kind of cheapjack, paternalistic, condescending theatricality instead of the bold and decisive leadership we thought we had been paying for all these years.

0 4 | 2 6 | 2 0 0 6
We distort, you decide

It's official — the Bush PR machine and Fox News have finally merged with the hiring of Tony Snow as White House press secretary. Wonder who rammed this one down The Decider's throat, given Snow's penchant for occasionally pulling his swirling tongue out of W's ass to say he doesn't care for the taste?

Its just funny - best part about that congress comments was a REPBULICAN senator was seen leaving the fuel crisis forum in a PRUIS!!! RIGHT THE F-ON... its getting clearer and clearer that they all are both sides of the aisle almost all dumber than a collective "bag of red white and blue hammers"

so why this? why now? (the post... not the fuel *crisis*)
I was able to OPEN IN TABs with (Firefox of course) all my reading... and i'm reading lunch.

Good for Matt to finally put a lid on... I'd wager it'd be kick ass fun to ride hills with KL...

and NO i AIN'T gonna Wikki the whole damn post - too lazy today *smirk*

whoops - this has been sitting here for a while... maybe i should post it... nuttin new to add...

HAH - yeah right - nuttin new to add... i can always add new stuff... i should add the quotes from the home page, the crazy links to world wide disaster... but nah...

thanks for stoppin by and reading - see yall on the road or around!

what... no update this morning?

Yeah yeah yeah... suck it.

I may or may not change the banner up there... we'll see - if it creaps more than just gerry out then i suppose i should change it...

I had mentioned the iDiots pic from gwadzilla before she went out running yesterday... later that night she had a rather interesting observation/statement: "Everyone out there was talking on a cell phone or listening to an iPod(type device), when do they just think?"

DING DING DING - we have a winner folks. When do those people THINK. Do they ever think? Do they *think* they need some sort of musical sound track while they are running? I can think with music going on but its a different thinking compared to the thinking on the bike, or when there is no music.

My off the cuff reply is "They DON'T think." They get their daily feed from CNNheadline news... their opinions from NPR... nothing original, nothing uniquely them. Its a freakin cyborg society.

The "extreme" commuter BS "I do it for my family" yeah... thats what you think till you have a job close by and suddenly those 20-40 hours a week you are sitting on your fat ass in the car turn into family time. Now my cynical take is that those people actually LIKE that time away. It means they can leave the family stuff to the significant other. "I'm the bread winner, i want no other interaction other than fun with the family when i get home."

I'm pissed... waiting now... might just bag it if i get done with this before they show up. I'm hungry. I'm about 200mg of coffee lower than normal for this point in the day, the fucking microscope is pissin me off. Stupid overheated alloy messing up screws, no philips drivers around here so i have to make do with my Topeak multi-tool flat blade driver.... then 1 hour trying to align the damn mercury lamp. Nice and bright, load of UV, back and forth with different cubes, different alignment technigues... finally i get it to the point that it's close enough, lined up by the book (but still fuckedup - but less so) and i'm done.

Positive cycling news though. A think i finally have a team that i think i can fit in well with. A bunch of old guys, well not quite all.... and the ones at the meeting damn cool guys. I've ridden with two of em, i think maybe a third but only till dawn's powertap needed fixing (that was a mile or two)... The team kit is all verge gear... gonna have to hop down to the shop and get some shorts and a jersey or two, maybe grab an extra wind vest... could be freaky. The first time i'll actually put shorts on that match. Back in the day, only pro's had sublimated jerseys. Verge didn't exist, the companies doing custom cycling gear were few and far between and EVERYONE rode with black shorts. gonna be a change wearing red and black... most of the guys are very local, which is nice. maybe i'll even get hog tied into doing a road race or two.

might just have to renew that old expired liscense very soon, now that i can claim affiliation!

I had a funny idea this morning - thinking maybe i should just pick up lindsey, and sit at the tail of the pace line ride with the trailer.... then i think about the couple Phreds that show up and visualize the carnage potential... and wonder if i can get the trailer maneuvered around any crash... probably... its a thought for those days when i can't quite get home in time.

I actually should clean my bike one of these days... Esp since it hasn't rained on my commute in weeks it feels like. Maybe just two... kinda nice, not having the rain.

that and i haven't had my daily "open in tabs" reading spree... anyway - i'm headed outa here... need to full fill the needs... well at least the ones i can buy at normal stores....

well whadda ya think

the header pic?
okay - i changed it up a bit (in case you missed it Sailorboy was bitching about it taking too long to load)... the first pic Maybe this is a bit better...

comments? suggestions? too big? dump it?

oh and anything wrong with this bike?


oh and this:


if ya ain't using firefox you are a putz... double tripple props for safari users... but as i've said all along... Firefox ROCKS (oh and Opera users get props too... anyone but IE)

mid slide....

As big Jonny said... we are on the downslide to the weekend... coasting down... sliding down... falling on our ass out of control down...

and i got nadda... well not true... i generally never run out of things to say. Which would seem odd in person. Cause often i am content just to keep my mouth shut, that or just unsure how to get things started. I was thinking about it this AM cause i need a hair cut. Ya heard it here first. Its finally getting getting long enough to bug the shit outa me. That and maybe its getting hot enough outside that i don't need hair that i can tuck into my nice work shirts. The only relief about changing body shape is that my uniform of Old Navy jeans are the only things that i'm having trouble with. The rack of nice shirts from Nordstrom (seattle native baby yeah) still fit great... but the hair that can be tucked into the collar is just getting obnoxious now. And that had mbe thinking - often i'm just sitting there in the chair, quiet. Me feelin comfortable, the stylist/barber often not so comfortable with this giant quiet lump. I like to think... or watch... i dunno. I think my sister calls me one of those quiet staring type of guys that make 'girls' feel creapy... anyway that's what she called a guy that i thought seemed to act a bit like me... Might have been nice not be the oldest... there are plusses with that though too... So slowly cruising down the BLVD with the empty trailer, thinking i had the idea - hey i why not bring my little moleskin and pen and 'interview' that might be hokey or stupid... i dunno... that or it starts Them asking questions. Maybe that's sort of it. I'm much more suited as a personality to answering questions than asking them. And not so good at doing the turn around question...

Ah well... what to do about it - i'm too old to worry about changing, no point in impressing the ladies anymore...

Oh yeah - tunage... song i have 'owned' since it was released freaking years ago... its a mustard plug song... ifn anyone remembers that band... 'Thigh High Nylons' i got pretty much the whole song in my head and put that up there next to Little Feat's "willin" Tom Sawyer from Rush... Beethoven's Violin Concerto... Wagner's Der Fliegender Holländer... Black 47 Bobby Sands MP ... Gordon Bok's Golden Vanity....

Those'd be the key soundtracks for my life... not so much representative of it but ones that strike cords that are more than just sounds....

And yeah - i may have said as much before - i tend to often repeat myself. Not always the best of habits to re-tell stories, esp when the audience is too polite to tell ya (in person... here ya just don't read... no worries).

I've also been having a little internal struggle... do i tell everyone 'hey i've got a blog' or keep it quiet and let those read it who find it. I've wrestled with the topic before, to blow my own horn or not... and always i seem to slide down on the modesty side and say not. its more me, shy but not quite.... the ultimate step would be to add the blog as a sig on my email account... i dunno... maybe later...

Also kinda looking more at the wordpress option... exporting the template would seem to be a royal bitch, but i've heard its doable... on the other side... what host is in a better position for logevity than Google? Hell those guys rule the internet. Google personalized page rocks. The quotes are cool... and i haven't revisited them in a while:

Always be wary of any helpful item that weighs less than its operating manual.
- Terry Pratchett

It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours.
- Harry S Truman

that and the simple recipe RSS feed had this pop up:
On sale today at Amazon.com is the Factory-Reconditioned KitchenAid Ultra Power Blender in black (SOLD OUT) or white for $39 from $129. Features include a 500-watt blender with five speed controls. Crushes ice. 40-ounce, dishwasher-safe glass blender jar. 1-year warranty. Free shipping available.

How cool is that... My braun stick blender works just fine for soups and what not... but saving $90? Damn that's a sweet deal /sarcasm

it ain't a good deal if you don't actually need it. but don't tell that to the consumeristic market....

I won't even go off on the whiny people in Houston, the college students driving a Dodge quad cab 1500 Hemi p/u truck saying they are spending 1/2 their income on gas... not to mention the truck went through a long drive through - idling for about 6 minutes... and the student had the awareness to say ya know that value meal just got much more expensive cause of the drive through... WELL FREAKING PARK THE TRUCK, TURN IT OFF AND WALK INSIDE.... WTF does a college student need a GIANT p/u for anyway...

more shit to piss me off - serves em all freaking right... I feel bad for my bro and his work truck, but it can get 20 mpg on the highway and its a big vortec V8 2500... and he can just factor the fuel into his client billing... and people round here want to put money into their houses... works for him...

Oh and he's smart... truck's only for work... And i guess it goes for my other GC bro as well...

wow for starting off saying i got nuttin... i've rambled on way too long

putting myself to sleep ZZzzzzzzzzzzzz
-G

lunch time comments

Vnews article about coaching training and what not. Nothing revolutionary but a good read nuntheless....

And i'm gonna cross-link JG's post...

Most people love their iPod or what ever portable MP3 player they use. I've got a cheapass one that works great... and use it when i'm working somewhere and i need to block off the rest of the world to focus and concentrate on stuff...

but riding and listening... bad shit... bad bad bad shit...

unplug from the iPod and plug into life and what's going on.

If you use the iPod to shut out agravating drivers... that ain't freakin good, learn to deal with them so they stop agravating ya... hell i have problems with and haven't quite figured out what to do about it other than keep trying and always smile and always wave.

Nothing is as disarming as a smile and a polite manner. Yelling back makes things worse... That would be the Rush the fat wingbag sack of shit way of doing something... find something that you don't like and yell about it - search out conflict and magnify it....

find someone's deep dark insecurities and use em against them...

that or use them to help over come them and build a positive structure. But ya can't do SHIT if you are plugged into your own GD world.

I love music, play music, can't live without music... but i can live without an iPod hooked to my head on the bike....

one of those OMG dude NO WAY...

Rides last night. Cruising along, catching on having fun. Lets see if i can do this in chronological order in a way that actually makes sense without jumping all over the place. YEAH right. Hmmm maybe i try the outline thing - sometimes that works:

#1 BLVD Ride
-Matt
-Kipp
-Josh
-gap bridged
#2 plagiarism Authors
#3 Sex Predators and Dateline
#4 i dunno something will come up

There... I'm sure that "sex predators" will be a bad combo for the google searches, just like nipple was... thanks for putting the web logs up on the priority of search returns oh great google gods :rolleyes: /sarcasm

Okay. The Ride last night. Was great, i blasted out a here from work... hauled ass with the trailer up the blvd to grab the toddler. Completely smoked a guy on a bike who seemed a bit shoulder rocky and knees out to the side kinda stuff huffin and puffin up the ride. He *looked* fit and all that but i'm sure he didn't really appreciate some long haired goateed dude on some old steel commuter with a trailer behind blasting by him up the rise...

Got the kid, loaded her up, blasted home, damn that hill sucks carrying the messenger back and the trailer with her in it. At that point i realized climbing up the hill... i'm turning into a Diesel, not some well tuned Euro offering with 500 ft-lbs or torque and 450 horsepower.... nah seems i'm more of a 400 ft-lbs machine but seemingly only 200 horses... I can get that damn thing up any hill, but the cadence just ain't there, neither is the gearing... And i got thinking maybe this trailer ain't the best for training... but then there was the ride.

I do a quick turn around, blast down, hop on the tail just as rizzy dizzy matt from Seattle jumps on too. Still driving his American Classic carbon wheels, cause his alloy hoop on the powertap is busted... Anyway, so i know he's a track guy... and we talk about disks and how they give ya 200 watts on the track over a box section rim... anyway, so i ask, where ya race around here (i dunno where the local track is off the top of my head) and he says: "Seattle." No way, marymoore v-drome? My bro was racing there, so i ask if he knew the name... nah. Then here comes ol'Kipp. On his newish KHS TT bike... flying down at about 30 mph or so... First the delightful Dawn jumps to his wheel, then Matt blasts outa there like a cannon... i look back, i'm on the inside of the double pace... they get a block ahead or more (these are longish blocks) and the guy inline behind me says hey - you gonna jump out and get em? And i check, no cars... "Yes"

KABOOM -- flying out of a cannon... at least that's what it felt like. It felt awesome... I caught em pretty damn quick got a great 100% effort in and then chatted with Kipp while Dawn was tucked into his slipstream and Matt was hangin on... I was across the road, no draft and chatting for a minute, feeling great. The legs didn't feel too bad. Much better than Saturday. Dawn looked to be worked really hard to stay in the wheel, but she may just always look like that. I know quite a few folks that are rollin easy but look like they are trying to poop a sequoia trunk.

So i roll around, Matt joins us after following Kipp off the Blvd for some time... and Matt and Jason are chatting away for a lap or so, and there is this dartmoth guy sitting infront with no paired rider... and as the conversation lapses between me and the guy i'm with i jump around Matt into line... and I hear "Hey Geoff." I'm kinda thinkin WTF? I don't know this guy... then i look - damn he's familar... then he says "Its Josh" HOLY SHIT - josh S from back in Michigan. Worked at the shop together and i worked with his big sister (older sister, she was tough and fast on the bike and in no way shape or form big). He's on his old school Merlin Extralight, and in his 3rd year of med school at brown. anyway it was a damn crazy cool thing! That and i was wearing my old MSU jersey and he'd seen me post once or twice on the email list and knew he'd run into me eventually... well there he was. Amazin stuff. kinda cool when chance happenings happen. Talking about stuff was cool... Then we rolled in around the start stop and Il Bruci was sitting there chattin with the folks who stopped... ie the gals he was rolling around in the slow group with, and i said hey - talked for 30 seconds or so - asked what time it was... 6:45 (shit my wife wanted to get out running... damn gotta head home)... and i head back up and shit - these guys are two blocks away (and these are the longish blocks) up hill... and rolling faster each lap...

So i'm gapped... and i figured what the hell. Lets see what i can do... And sure it ain't racing but it was a nice test for me... And i flew up... and up and just as we get to the rise the legs start saying hey man... wtf... the power starts dropping... but i'm close... damn close... not close enough to yell for someone to drop back and pull me up... and i just mentally buckle down and bridge the gap. Although the group was only rolling along at around 19-20mph... after a long day of working, and the efforts in the trailer and the 1 hr+ riding around i felt a small measure of happiness that i was able to pull em back... Nothing amazing or spectacular. Nothin for most fit cyclists but for my marks now.. that felt good. I rolled around to the top of the Blvd, said see yall and headed home... to find my wife wasn't feeling great and wouldn't be going out for a ride afterall. So i started some rice, fried up some Tofu, and made some GeWilli peanut sauce... It was tasty...

Okay - so then what, right, that plagiarism author chick from Harvard. All over the news, something about Opal or something. it was on the tube this AM while things were getting organized and hell the number of passages that were identical were astounding. And that prissy chick who 'wrote' the book certainly did a good job of trying to clear her name but damn if it was a piss poor defense. "I internalized her writing." Well no shit. Ya prolly wrote the shit down from her book and somehow it made it into yours.

plagiarism bugs the living shit out of me. and is impossible to do if you write the way i learned back in middle and high school. Ah well. Like that phony memoir guy a bit ago... this is just bad for writers. Shitty copy cats and liars get press... True good writers and original ones are left in the dark wings. Stupid media.

Okay that Dateline thing - yeah - see boys and girls - TV is bad. It makes a big impression and that's not always good. Stupid predators... gotta laugh, esp at the ones who are like "I knew it was a trap, i just knew it." "Well why did you come?" "I don't know, i don't know." Freakin hell they even grabbed a teacher. Oh its just so amazing... freaking crazy sick fucks out there... Castrate the sunofbitches... Eunuch them... or force em into Gimp suits for use in Prisons.

phew - glad i got that out of my system... time to get some coffee in, its been a crazy busy morning already... and the day should just get better. My reading is caught up. SB's comment about the clubs swings it back towards the Pvelo guys... we'll see if i can get over to their meeting... might not be so easy... The downside to bikeworks out in Swansea is they are too damn far away. And the Freestuff stuff... i can get whatever i want pretty much at cost through two shops but they ain't local. So the discounts and all that ain't so much of a big deal.. the bigger deal is total outlay in $$ for the kit. But even then, i do need some new shit to ride in and if they got bibs and jerseys... i might as well buy team kit instead of generic stuff... even if it aint the best deal of deals... The race fee coverage for top 5 finishes is cool but at this stage i dunno ifn i'll be doing that. The usacycling crap seems to be getting less confusing but there ain't a cat 5 in cross so does that mean i'm automatically upgraded? That and i think i have 10 collegiate races and supposedly that is an auto upgrade, but then that was over 12 years ago... not really counting i'm thinking.... but i gotta not sweat that stuff i think and just ride. That Bikeworks TT series seems like a damn good idea... gives me a month or so to build before it starts then i can get a good gauge building up towards cross. That and cross is almost more TT than mass start... not a lot of pack riding in Cross... Definitely more of a mt bike style race, at least when i was doing it and from looking at Nats.

wrap this fish up and get it to the customer... which is me... a liberating feeling just writing for oneself. OOOH almost forgot - gotta check Frazz today! And oh man is it funny!

Startin fresh

From the top...

BioDiesel. I like the Google alerts... but its starting to look like a tape on loop. Same stories... all the time.

This one's pretty cool though, and its from one of my more favorite states.

reading over at 32sixteen's stuff ('cause he's got an RSS feed and its on my google page) i couldn't help but comment, and then came over to Mike's "Column" over at BikeMag.com. DAMN FREAKIN STRAIGHT man. Can't help but think, maybe it was a bit of inspiration from solobreak through me to him that go it going. Cause ya know ol' SB was bitching about GU packs littering the race course. And I was bitching about cigarettes and all that. But then when the hell did he write that and maybe

I wonder if GU gets a bad rap cause its the only gel product with a two letter name. People don't say "power gel pack" they say GU packs even if they are power gel.

Anyway. "Stupid assholes" is right. Stupid freaking assholes littering up the place. Esp on the GD trail? WTF? Stupid assholes. Prolly drove to the trail head in an SUV. I hope gas goes to $6/gallon just to mess with those stupid assholes.

now where was i... my stomach's growling, i could bitch about the oven when i was making dinner last night. But i'll say, the sauce was kick ASS. soo simple, made killer by what had to be a mistake or a gift at Wholefoods. They had two massive bunches of fresh basil in a flour plastic thing... priced at $1.49 - yeah buck fitty said that price was for one ounce... there was easily 6 oz of basil in there. Maybe it was 1 ounce if ya dried the leaves down... still that's rediculous and it was delicious. Simple simple pomodoro sauce.

EVOO (extra virgin olive oil) 6 cloves of garlic (through the press)... low temp cook em for a minute or two until they start to carmelize... toss in some crushed tomatoes (or any tomatoes, fresh, canned, puree, whole canned - i used a 28 ounce can of some damn fine puree -all i had). Add a touch of salt (to taste) roughly chop the massive handful of basil - was two cups chopped and loosely packed (by my 5 year old). She did the packing not the chopping, don't worry. Bring to temp and eat. Or what i did, cool, refridgerate and use the next day. Overcooking will funk up the basil. And holy smokes it was good. I poured it over some chicken parm that i made. The chicken gave me the problems. Well the oven did. And eventually i got the chicken to hit 140 degrees and it was sooooooooo moist it might have been raw. but it wasn't raw... it was definately cooked. A couple nice air chilled breasts from aformentioned market, covered in bread crumbs and some nice Italian Sheep milk Romano cheese and some acutally very nice cheesehead state Parmigiano Reggiano... Sure sure - it ain't real Parmigiano, but it is very comparable the italian version that costs 2x as much. No it ain't quite the same but economics force the reliance on this cheese. Hell at least i ain't ever gonna allow that powered crap amurican's believe is parmesan in my house. NEVER. Anyway... the chicken was cooked for 1 minute in some EVOO at high heat (no not smoking high, no heat oxidation of the oil happened) on each side, enough to brown but not cook completely. Then they were placed in a glass baking dish on top of a thin layer of the sauce, and i put a small dollop of sauce (which was cold from the fridge) on top of each one... then i sprinkled some left over pizza cheeze (also grated by hand, none of that pre-shredded covered in cellulose to keep from clumping store bought crap). It was finished off with some of the Parmigiano, and the Pecorino Romano cheese and finished in the oven. The chicken really was the most moist and perfectly cooked i've ever had.

Keep in mind, in michigan, chicken just wasn't on the table much. I dunno, just never liked it, the quality and the price were two things keeping me away. But around here the chicken is very good stuff and the price on sale is in-line with that of beef.

Soanyway, now i'm hungry. And i'm gonna eat a bit of that left over chicken on some fettucini pasta... with that super simple tasty sauce.

Maybe it'll give me some legs for the pace line ride tonight... prolly will make something simple tonight like tofu and veggies over rice... or not... we'll see what the gang feels like.

All i can say, in addition to dropping litter everywhere. People gotta start making shit at home. Involve the family the housemates friends and relatives. Make the kitchen a community and a nucleating event to get everyone together. The isolationistic crap that iPods and chat rooms and cell phones and SMS and all that just ain't terribly the best shit in the world for the human condition... i'm sure some punk ass kid would like to debate that... and i'd like to see em try...

i'm gonna eat... and drink coffee... cause eating and coffee are wonderful for the soul. My soul gets pissed when i don't have coffee, and food, well, ya know... no food, no ATP, no ATP, no neuron function... no nuron function, no human ego trip thoughts that we are more than this physical hulk (I.E. that there is something like a spirit or a soul)...

damn did i just give a curb job to the whole basis of religion? sorry, my bad...

(yeah yeah i will go eat and stop writing)
Peace - G!

catchin up... wish i was movin on up (as the song goes)

Okay – This whole blogger hoopla yesterday and not this morning has me pissed… time to hit up wordpress I guess, maybe take the D man’s offer up for some server space. Hell he has a pic server up there, and his server IP stuff seems one hell of a lot smoother than the Google crap. But then there’s the linkage and all that.

Couple things to start off with. Most of which I gotta cover from yesterday cause it was stupid, blogger that is. Yeah, yeah… that’s what I get for not being as adept and cool as KL with her own stuff…. And yeah this could be the wake up call. Anyway, I have already covered the rest of that. And if you noticed better punctuation and capitalization its cause I’m doing this in MS Word. Yeah that bitch of a program. I like Word Perfect. That Dos based one with the fancy list of stuff that you could do with the function keys, and shit function and control function and alt function and shit alt function and what ever the combos were… in college I had em all memorized. And I wrote on a wicked cool plasma displayed ‘lap top’ with a massive 20 megabyte hard drive. Wait. Maybe it was just 2 megs… Dunna matter.

The ride I missed, I really missed.

We had fun. It was a RELAXED pace. Interesting group
of folks (about a dozen). 4 Rivs, only one non-ferous
frame.

We had one celebrity in the form of Capt. Bike himself
Sheldon Brown.

I will keep you up to date on future drinking
sessions, erm, I mean rides.

Well my non-relaxed ride I think was worth it, but more importantly it was good to get back at a reasonable hour on Saturday. I can only imagine a pub session with Sheldon Brown would not be brief.

So here’s an email I got a big laugh out of and I’m gonna share it or at least put it here so I remember it:

> A LIVING WILL
>
> While watching the race a couple weeks back, my wife and I were
> discussing life and death.
>
> I told her, "Just so you know, I never want to live
> in a vegetative state, dependent on some machine and fluids from a
> bottle.
>
> If that ever happens, just pull the plug."
>
> She promptly got up, unplugged the TV and threw out all my beer.
>
> Some days I hate being married to a smart ass.

Isn’t that funny? Well I think so. Damn statement of America. More women should take that lead.

Oh and I keep forgetting to check on Frazz

not to mention I’m LMAO at “you lost me at espresso”

“that’s like putting frosting on Brussels sprouts”

“if you’re not smart enough to set down the ketchup packets before you ask, you’re not smart enough to borrow a rubber mallet.”

Okay so I just killed the punch lines for the last three days of Frazz… but man I love that strip. Where have I been? It’s without a doubt the crowning successor to calvin and hobbes….

I wonder if there was anything else to catch up on….
Nah whassa point…

TODAY… about time I freakin’ catch up to the present!

And screw it – today gets its own post… stay tuned…

damn blogger

trying to upload this weekends stuff - it has just been hanging...

that and i've got two nice entries...

damn lets see if this works

Sunday's thoughts - basically Sat Part II

So SUNDAY! At last. And well forget the Monday post for now, It’ll be something like “I rode in in the rain, with the trailer… it sucked, but could have been worse, I could have been in a car.”

The Red Wings stunk it up. I guess, because I don’t really know BECAUSE THEY SHOWED SJS and NASHVILLE!!!! WTF! Nashville vs San Jose or DETROIT and OTTAWA!!!! Hello? Um… which match up makes you think hockey? Stupid TV. So much for hockey, although it ain’t all bad. I didn’t have time to watch it anyway.

Actually went to Mass today at the cathedral of Saint Peter and Paul. Damn amazing cathedral. Reverent and holy place. It was the ‘High’ mass. In Latin. Well parts of it were. And it was amazing. First time I think since college that I’ve actually felt a connection to a deeper power. And be it connection to the tradition or just moved by the incredible pipe organ, it was powerful. Way better than that Auditorium and the out of key folksy crap the ‘modern’ catholics seem to like. People there were reverend, and deeply spiritual. Not deeply consumeristic and all that crap. I gotta give em props, the Catholics though definitely have an edge on the whole ‘peace’ stuff. PJP II definitely still has some pull on things. Maybe it was just the lack of rage that I normally have when I go to mass that I was feeling. At any rate – I may head back sometime. It was cool…. Kinda reminded me of Taize.

After a brunch we drove around with what might be the first of many open house ‘tour’ – self guided of course. Its gonna be a freaking nightmare finding a place. In-laws pressuring for ‘new’ construction, but I’m not wild about the massive vinyl components and the ‘modern’ toxins that these new sealed homes have. It scares me more than the lead and the asbestos does that ‘might’ be in the oldest homes. The trade off isn’t something I’m real excited about. On the other side, the market seems rather flooded. I stayed in the car, but every one the report was the same ‘make an offer, make an offer” HAH. I recognize that language. Its exactly what we had been telling our agent for months and months and months and months. The market really must stink out here. I gotta say though, it would be nice to have all our stuff in one place. And by stuff I mean my bikes. It all comes down to the bikes. Quite the circle.

That’s the end of my notes, and I didn’t even get a chance to express my regret about jumping on the collegiate ride instead of the pre-lunch + lunch ride. Thanks to a nice text message I was riding in a group off the bat rather than riding 15 miles to join a ride. And yeah, I’ve got a thing about ‘driving’ to a ride. I might drive to a ‘race’ but not a ride. Well I should rephrase that. I will never discount any invitation to ride, and if its enticing enough with people or terrain, I could always go… that and one of these days I’ll have to get back on the Mt. Bike.

There we have it. 75 or less (well each word is one less) shy of 2,000 words. A mediocre update I’d say. Should offer a reasonable accounting of the highlights of the weekend. How about that – I made it this far without mentioning my nipple (which is fine now thank you).

Peace out yall… find reconciliation, for it’s the only way to over come the anger fear and hate that divides us into those who are smart and wise and those who voted for… and those who are not…

G (as in Geoff or GeWilli not the far more attractive, and fast G from sat’s ride - yeah she won her cat - damn!!!)

PS – as I’m sitting here copying this from a folder named ‘blog entry’ to one on the thumb drive titled ‘web log’ I think about my agreement with solobreak’s web log comments… and my current ‘web log’ anti – blog kinda language and then it hits me… web log might as well be some Kirk Captain’s log… and crap… that ain’t any better than calling it a blog…. (oh and I’m well over my limit tonight like anyone made it this far).

Saturday Ride report and more...

Nipple chafing. No, not something kinky, at least not as I’m concerned. Pain with my pleasure just don’t do it for me. This is the results of a damn bib short malfunction. I knew it was a bad sign when jean was saying how much of a pain bibs were and that how she was tucking the bib straps for her knickers into the waist. Bib= bad cause its too hard to get a tight wet sweaty jersey off just to take the bibs off just to go to the bathroom after a race/ride. Hence her comfort and happiness with shorts. Of course there’s me. Bibs are everything. Can’t ride without them. Definitely need knew ones but lemme tell ya, never-ever will I be caught dead with shorts on unless I’m getting paid to wear em. So the bibs get me back. The right strap was laying there just on the outside, and 20 minutes before we head back I feel like I’ve got a small pain right on my chest… wtf… well it was somewhat chilly and the ride was wicked fast and fun I never noticed the malfunction and the discomfort until getting in the shower. Damn that was a painful nipple. A few hours later I had a nice reminder when my dear toddler girl drove her head hard into my chest, right on that spot. OOOOOOWWWWWW

So on this ride there was Matt, started it all off with a ‘woops’ I crashed as we pulled away from Faunce. He biffed hard on Waterman. Kinda funny, cause he didn’t get hurt… then crossing the Henderson, well there’s this nice channel, and we are usually to the left of it, not today for some reason and Leslie’s wheel got sucked into it and whammo… I saw it out of the corner of my eye, one or two pairs back from me. Blammo. Down. She landed on her previously reconstructed shoulder, tweaked the bike slightly, smushed her knee a bit but was actually okay to ride. She made the whole big long loop. Impressive.

The third of our estrogen contingent was the glorious Giulia. Yeah the Giulia of Dansko (now, IBC?). So we are talking about teams, and all that. Prov bike wasn’t getting great reviews – a bit laid back and not so big. Bad support, clothes at retail, what not. Bikeworks though. They are something maybe that is to be considered. Clothing at cost. $30/year. Race fee covered with a top 5 finish. And a few guys racin cross, and a time trial series this summer (that negacoach guy might actually approve of a TT – although – what do they say about TT racers who don’t do anything else? Nothing good!).

So where was i? Oh right Giulia. So were are talking and she says, do you know Kerry Litka?

I guess if I had been putting two and two together I might have dug out the dansko references in kerry’s stuff, and the fact that Giulia was all decked out in it clog kit, but it was a left field kinda thing. And I grinned. I said Yeah, I know her, well not really, I’ve never met her but I’ve read her writing and follow her web log pretty closely. G starts raving about how detailed and fantasic Kerry’s blog is. I agreed, and had a nice little laugh…. As the great big world collapsed. Well what could I expect, G’s strong, and she’s hanging and kicking some tough kid brown boy buts. There were no slackers on that ride, and it was freaking a blast. Anyway back to G for a quick second. Way back last year (nov ’05) I met her at one of these Faunce rides, and she’s on this gorgeous Klein Quantum. And I saw that bike and it hurt. A deep ache. I missed my Q Pro. But I haven’t really ridden with her since. Well that quantum, made me miss mine all the more. And… she may have given me the little push over the top to maybe shelf the Croll and haul out the Q Pro. We’ll see what the coming weeks have to say about that. Man I never did get around to finishing the whole club thing… doesn’t really matter though does it… cause I can always talk about it more later… bottom line, bikeworks seems to be edging the lead in potential clubs…

So this ride was kick ASS. But my legs were total shit. Enough to make an initial jump but had problems getting the last little oomph that they normally had. I was tired, slightly dehydrated and not really of complete focused sorts. I blame it on being old. Although its more cause I just was ill-prepared… sleep helps.

The ride ends… G and I (G&G hahah) heading up hope… I need coffee – badly. So I suggest seven stars. Great idea… we stop, two of the others on the ride show up, get coffee and whatnot… well here’s the new plan to lobby. All rides must now start and end at the coffee shop/bakery. No? Well we’ll see. That’s be totally kick ass.

Here’s a quick aside/sidebar. Saturday’s stuff (which I’m in the middle of) was written on paper, with pen, with the help of the toddler head buttin me (the nipple reference above) and attacking the paper and pointing to the words and saying toddler nonsense. Rather amusing, except for the nipple part. (and now I’m seeing just how many references I can have to nipples in this entry). Oh but right now its 10pm, the place is asleep (well our floor anyway). I’m trying to read the notes from the light of a 15watt bulb that is on my bedside table and transposing them on a keyboard I can’t see (thanks fingers for knowing where to go).

There are two notes left to cover for Saturday before I hit the Sunday entry (also handwritten but written today in a more organized and shorter (3 notes) fasion.

There was Friday. End of the day, head out after the webinar, catch some air, and hit the hub. Well damn if all the students are running around in their summer best. I hit there, but gotta get back. Wanted to true up the rear wheel on the P-mount (its hozed) but the stands were full. I head back (like I said), and come back along now deserted streets thinking where the hell did they all go? Grab a stand, and re-tension the rear wheel. ¼ turn on the drive side, ½ turn on the non-drive side. Then add extra tension on the non-drive to fix the dish, and true it all out. Meanwhile the crazy messenger punk style chicks are in force, well two of them. One working there and the other hanging there getting work done on her crazy freestyle/long travel Mt. Bike. Talk about fine booty. Okay, I’m a guy – can’t get over that part – not that I have the self confidence to do anything more than look. Its been a rough week if ya know what I mean. So I head home. Uphill and into the wind. Yeah the hub takes me down quite a few feet in elevation relative to work. And there all the students were. Packed into backyards, partying, drinkin, grillin… listening to tunes. All those good old college days…. (yeah right).

And finally on that crammed full of notes single page of paper, yes up to now has fit on one single piece of paper. And the final bit did as well.

Stanley Cup. All the most fabled, and holy of sporting trophies. And its on TV. Well some of it is. I loved hockey, from my first introduction by a ranger’s fan in college to moving to the Red Wings realm, and CBC. I’m a Detroit Red Wings fan. I despise the Zamboni, only watching an Olympia clean the ice makes the game for me. So its play off time. Well guess what. Hockey’s on OLN too. So now not only do I feel like an ass for not having Sat or Cable to watch the bike races… I don’t get to see ½ the hockey I might. At least NBC is covering some of the games. (just wait – it’s a nice segway into Sunday…..)

Damn, that was pretty good number of words out of one page of notes. Beaufort is right, a notepad and a pencil (pen) is good to have around.

tap tap tap

hello is this thing on?

um...

well here i am doing a bit of on-site training with a "webinar" my first one..

actually kinda cool... and i'd be pissed and moocho frustrated if i didn't have a dual monitor i'd be hamstrung with the desktop display share... takes up the whole primary monitor.

and his voice is damn identical to Brad Eaton over at King.org. Kinda funny hearing about digital CCD cameras from a guy who's normally the classical music DJ at the best radio in the world. Not just the tone, but the pronunciation.

Damn cool stuff - nothing like sitting for 1.5 hours and getting a DAMN fine does of education.

I like this format! Kinda leads to maybe we should somehow incorporate this with our normal trainings... hmmm

okay - obviously its such a nice day that NO one should be doign anything but busting their ass getting work done so they can get out and enjoy it before the rain comes...

so - me too...

peace out!
G

OOOOH - i wonder if i can make use of HDR in scientific imaging???? Hmmm

What is HDR? This is a start.

bottom line... its wicked damn freaking COOL

Earth Day is Tomorrow - park the car - ride a bike

is the end of the week yet?

This BioDiesel thing of late seems to have generated an emailed "Hey have you seen this?"

And This being: The NOAA Lake Michigan fleet. When they switched over in 2000 World Energy was the big supplier and the only Fuel Oil Distributor in Michigan with the BioD was the GE Wacker company. And it was about that time that we started pushing from the end user side on the TDIs. It grew to a partnership between the local TDIclub and Wacker oil. They showed up at TDIFest in michigan and pumped b100 and b20 non-stop for about 6 hours. And then they pumped even more the next day. Pretty impressive. And this was really amazing fuel. When there were just a few places doing it and control was extremely tight.

There are lots of tour boats and sightseeing boats that have switched over to BioDiesel because that allows the captain to ignore the wind direction and the exhaust relative to the passengers. A few companies in Hawaii were first, I know of a couple in Maine to have made the switch and passenger comfort is unbelievable. The Washington State Ferry system has incorporated a % of BioD in the fuel oil they use on the boats.

Every school bus company that has switched to a B20 or even a B5 blend has seen a dramatic decrease in maintenace costs. fewer fuel pumps need to be replaced and the oils stay cleaner, engine wear is down and everything just works better. And the environmental benefits are significant. In the older diesel systems they aren't great at reducing particulates (the newer ones are) and biodiesel can eliminate the particulate problem. Although even big black diesel soot tends to wash out of the air unlike gasoline pollutants that you cannot see.

phew... i had no intentions of starting the day with a BioD sermon. i was gonna be materialistic and sad about my ancient old M-frames breaking. and how its strange riding around without the gold iridum hiding my eyes... i can't do the booty tracking as easily or undetectably. At least i THINK the frames were covered with a lifetime warranty. I guess i just add them to the list of shit to do.

Ah what the hell Earth Day is tomorrow and what better way to Celebrate the earth than to burn clean Fuel. Okay, I have a better idea. RIDE THE G-D BIKE> Yeah a bike. most efficient form of transportation EVER invented by man. EVER.

but that said - some more google alert tidbits.
Earth Week: Biodiesel: A present from our past to fuel us into the ...
Seattle University - Seattle,WA,USA
Biodiesel is a cleaner fuel you can safely drink, has a pleasant smell, biodegrades faster than sugar and produces nearly as much power as petrodiesel.

How about that.

and this?
Reactor converts vegetable oil into biodiesel
Seattle Times - United States
PORTLAND — A tiny chemical reactor that can convert vegetable oil directly into biodiesel could help farmers turn some of their crops into homegrown fuel to ...


Just a smattering of the stories on that fuel, the rest are here. But again the bicycle is the most efficient.

Ya hear that alot. how do you quantify it for non-cyclists? well A few others have done it. And check this out.
Science of Cycling, Human Power
or another one...
go by bicycle


A comparison of the energy cost of various forms of transportation shows that the bicycle is most energy-efficient.

graphics are great aren't they?



gotta give props to a logo that combines Science and Cycling... nice work over there folks! And no - i'm not gonna fact check and do the peer review thing. If yall wanna check their facts and let me know if they are on base or not? Go for it.

Here - getting political... i always loved this fact (from go by bike):
11. In 2001, more than 3,000 Americans died of terrorism on our own home soil. In 2001, more than 43,000 Americans died in car crashes on our own home soil, and about 2,200,000 suffered disabling injuries. The American death toll of the Vietnam War, which lasted several years, is about 50,000.

And more and more distracted drivers are nailing others. Like the gal that nailed my car. freakin hell. Pay attention out there people. And i love riding in the city. Parking is never a problem. Even following traffic signs I can almost always get where i'm going faster than a car.

Breaking email alert:
kentsbike.blogspot.com/
yes... another link... a long read about buying a commuter bike. It is a damn funny one too. Although i understand his use of the L.A. mystique... it still is annoying. The audience probably can relate to it better... but it still is a thorne that he's the only face of US cycling, even in retirement. Oh well. Could be worse, we could be Lance-less.

okay - time to move on... the duration of distractions is coming to an end... the bits and fits of the morning routine is over... Time to settle down and polish the Workshop i'm giving. Which i thought was like weeks and weeks away... well it ain't Its freaking less than two weeks away!!! Ah well...

that and now i have a certain guy sayin i really really should think about getting some racing miles in before the cross season starts... well... we'll see... gotta do that club thing so i'm not 'unattached' but that means i gotta buy clothes and pay dues... so the motivation ain't really there... maybe i'll just make my own team, race in messenger knickers so if the weather gets really shitty and cold i won't be one of the frozen many in lycra... or not... gotta wonder what people would think if some tall freak like me lined up wearing pants... not bibshorts...

something to think about... catchyall later... oh, Anyone wanna go for a ride this weekend?

cell phone conundrum

didn't get a new one - but the guys at the store in person had a different story than the two people on the phone... i dunno - i'll prolly wind up gettin screwed somehow... i just know it... but at least i have an extra few months to decide what phone to get and like buying a laptop... the longer you put off the purchase/upgrade the better the system will be. and when it comes ride damn down to it, the phone i got now works... and none of the options out there are 'exactly' what i want.

that and i found a kick ass sweet place to stash the bike at the Mall... but the mall and the Hub are in opposite directions and doing that meant i didn't get to swing by and see what's 'new' and to annoy them with my 'hey i've worked in a shop so long it isn't funny and i have an opinion on everything and could trade places with you seamlessly' kinda attitude coupled with trying NOT to be one of those kinda guys... makes it really weird sometimes... that and i get a good vibe from the 'owners' and a 'dude you are weird' vibe from the mesomorph freeriding *mechanic* kid they have working for em... He seems okay but it also seems not to be the most skilled mechanic in the toolshed... Oh and kinda funny weird - odd was that at the VZW store a tattoed dude wearing homemade messenger pants (the dickies or whatevers had the leg folded up about 4 inches and stiched up) and an ancient/well worn messenger bag with the Hub patch on it. Yup that Hub that i had to fore-go (or is it forgoe or for-go... whatever) for the mall trip.

The shizzle is fo real, the skizzle is hot and i aint gonna fool no-one with my slang. I'm some techy geeky tall white boy who's old enough to remember stuff that anyone born after 1980 don't have a clue about....

and i mentioned the boulderites being lame bike race attendees... well the baseball reference is doubly puzzline...
Bike race: bring your own beer, your own chair
Baseball: spend a forutune on beer, pay outrageous money for a chair that you can only use for a the game.

Both have punctuated action, sit wait - drink - watch something happen, drink socialize, watch something happen... and sure - ya don't even need alcohol for the equation to work, although the alcohol sales might be part of why people think baseball is fun. Sanctioned drinking.

But the bike race you can bring your own favorite beverages, i mean will they have PBR on tap? or High Life? Or Bar Harbor Blueberry Ale? Or Elm City Ale? Or Brooklyn Lager? and will their chair be as comfy? Or can you move your chair from 1st base to 3rd base area if the action changes or you get tired of the sun in your face?

Case in point - and no i don't normally share emails, but i'll leave the sendee anonymous cause the pic demonstrates that a Bike Race can be 3x as much fun as a stupid BORING baseball game. CIAO!

WTF

Thats what i said this morning as i jumped on the bike... and tried to clip in with my running shoes... WTF am i doing wearing these? Damn it. Turn around put the bike back inside, go upstairs, change into the SPD... and back away...

just one of those days... that and cell bill shows up - boom WTF are delayed minutes? Oh... 15 min on the phone and my understanding is much clearer now. Great. Oh well... gonna get it all straightened up and dump this 517 number and get with the local... but i hear from one of my brother's that the 'trendy' thing is to have non-local numbers. Or just having a number for like for-ever... which i suppose going on 7 years with the same # is a long time... esp since most of the time was before you could transfer the same to diff company.

Riding home into the wind last night with the trailer up hill was fun. That and i am finding I can generate enough force to make the top of the left patella hurt like hell, with the trailer attached. I gotta remember to downshift when stopping. That and some guy, helmentless, that i was following for a while, blows right through a redlight intersection without a care in the world. freakin great. SURE lets ignore traffic rules but then expect cars to afford us some respect. Damn.

Oh and just before pullin onto the blvd... some kid in a lime green kit rolls up as i'm turning left at the bottom there - heading up hill into the wind. And i get up to the crest of the first rise and look back, expecting to see him sittin there, he's 200 yeards back and we made the turn at the same time? Huh? Maybe he stopped but it just looked like he was going slow... that and i had the damn trailer into the wind... Leaving the place I'm toolin along with the messenger bag on my back and my daughter in the trailer (an extra 30+ pounds) and i'm cruising down and Chris blasts by in the Prov Velo kit and suprise, not on his Cross bike anymore! Looks to be doing full out intervals... it was tempting to attempt a lap with him, but... i was already sweat'n my balls off in my work clothes and thirsty as all hell (no water) so i just waved and said hey.

Now as i'm falling asleep, i start thinkin... I should really do the whole liscense thing now, but it comes down to team selection... do i go with the college team, or Prov Velo... or bikeworks... or I dunno... I guess it depends on who'll be fielding a team for cross, what the costs are (dues, jersey) and what the benefits are... if Jessie and Jack had a USAC team that'd be a no-brainer... and maybe if i got my lazy ass over to Prov Velo i'd feel fine about their skills and shop... right now the LBS of choice is the Hub. No question. but there is a question and me and choices... i gotta break each choice down, weigh the options, chart it out, debate the trade offs, look for the hidden catches... all that crap, which is good but often just slows the process down to the point of annoyance... that and the natural procrastinator in me doesn't make it much easier.

Well a big shoutout to everyone out there today... its a gorgeous sunny and gonna be too damn hot kinda day (it might hit 70°F).
-g

Oh and check out this link... even better than Solobreak's walk/jog thing.... Profiles even!

random afternoon thoughts for this wed

How about that:

I want you competitive Boulderites to know that the good citizens of Providence, Rhode Island, are kicking your butts where spectating is concerned. At cyclocross nationals last December, they lined the finish area three deep, going nuts. They were creating their own fun while enhancing the racers', which is what the exalted mission of the spectator is all about.

My current home town makes boulder look bad... 'of course as they say (or i should say as she says) say about boulder - its a bad place for music or art cause everyone's always outside doing something... Here's the other question for those boulder dudes and dudettes... are the cyclists who race lining the course and cheering on the other races? Or are they off in their car on the way home before the day is done? Just curious. Not trying to be acusatory.... Most of the spectators at providence were racers and well when you have races going non-stop for three days (assuming the weather doesn't get so bad it cancel a race or two) and with cyclocross and the built in extra support (mechanics) and the national aspect (friends/family) ya can get a boat load of people, not to mention its damn exciting compared to a road/circuit race... just a random thought from afternoon perusing...

Yesterday I got an email that i feel a simple thank you may not communicate the same meaning. This individual said "Keep writing, your blog is one of the only one's that is still worth
reading," and if that isn't motivation enough to keep it up. Saying thank just seemed woefully inadequate. 'Cause those words touched me. Maybe it was my lower than normal caffine levels (Pez has a new bitty article about caffine... mmm coffee) yesterday, but today i'm amped and it still hits me in the emotional solar plexus. yeah yeah i'm soft, i've got feelings and SO WHAT. There's gotta be something to balance out my height, can't be all tough macho guy all the time. So maybe the next level of thankfulness is a public, you know who you are and i'm telling everyone how much that means to me. It might be silly. And i could probably work on a 1000 word essay just on the topic and the emotions and all that. but i won't, not that i don't want to, its just i don't have the time at the moment. So, i write on. I write on still writing what i want to, irrespective of external forces. And i am finding i really enjoy it.

And over at G'zilla this post hit me hard. Check out the Ride of Silence. There's a ride down in Cranston, and I am gonna check with the organizer to see about maybe doing a ride around the BLVD at that time... either in addition to or in conjunction with... With the recent losses, Brad, Bill... Kendra... and the others i haven't commented on... its tough- each one hits me hard.

the BLVD circut ride

editorial side note - i had a complete moment of panic terror and anger a second ago. The computer decided to restart without prompting me (i was installing something) and Firefox window shut down before i had completely published the post... and i freaked. I had clicked 'publish post' but there were script problems with the Google Alert links. And so i was trying to remove the script garbage code. And well thats when it closed. But i opened up blogger manager and phew... it was there, big relief. But in process of pullin the script i seem to have pulled 1/2 the links... and maybe i'll go back and fix em later... but for now this'll do... i thought i had lost the whole damn post... fortunately here it is....

Yes a ride report (oooh great not a NOTHER one)... snickers and snide comments from a fictitious peanut gallery (and yeah maybe i'll run spell check today... maybe not)

BUT FIRST - breaking Google New Email Alert... okay so i changed things around on my alerts and tried something new... "BioDiesel" and this morning a damn fine collection of exciting positive news. And that's ALWAYS good:

New Biodiesel Plant To Open In Gans
HomeTown channel.com - Fort Smith,AR,USA
Officials said a new biodiesel plan is in the works in Gans, Okla. ... Experts say biodiesel is also environmentally friendly, about 98-percent biodegradable. ...

Burden farmer blazes a trail with biodiesel plant
The Arkansas City Traveler Online - Arkansas City,KS,USA
By ROY GRABER. BURDEN -- A new biodiesel plant has opened up in downtown Burden, giving farmers an opportunity to raise some of the fuel they burn. ...

Biodiesel Support Prompts EPA to Honor Willie Nelson
Wisconsin Ag Connection - Marshfield,WI,USA
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Region 9 will honor biodiesel advocate and singer Willie Nelson on April 18 in recognition of Nelson's support of ...

Minister approves biodiesel
Vermilion Standard - Alberta, Canada
... spoke to the public after attending a demonstration of the Enviro Club's Sunfuel project where students proved that their homemade biodiesel could serve as an ...

Biodiesel boost
Pueblo Chieftain - Pueblo,CO,USA
A BIODIESEL plant is in the works near Monte Vista that could provide a boost to the San Luis Valley's agricultural economy. BioEnergy ...

New fill-up option: biodiesel
Dallas Morning News (subscription) - TX,USA
By MATTHEW ZABEL / Denton Record-Chronicle. The biodiesel fuel that the city of Denton's vehicles have used for more than a year now is for sale to the public. ...

TPI announces biodiesel joint venture with ARW
egoli.com.au - Australia
... a Heads of Agreement (“HoA”) to form a 50/50 unincorporated joint venture to confirm the feasibility of and then develop a biodiesel production facility in ...

Willie Nelson awarded for biodiesel campaigning
Truck News - Toronto,ON,Canada
SAN FRANCISCO, Cal. -- Country music legend Willie Nelson is being honoured by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for his support of biodiesel. ...

Howzat for positive stuff... assuming it can be read in quote form.

now back to the ride... it wasn't raining like it was this morning when i took the youngest to daycare in the trailer... It was cool enough that i begrudingly put on arm warmers and knee warmers... 58 and getting cooler, and not until the pace started picking up after 75 minutes or so did i begrude that choice. maybe if i'd rubbed some of that fancy heat cream on the legs and arms i could have gotten away with it... but i don't have any. And my 10 year old Pearl Izumi knee warmers with the completely useless gripper strips were perfectly fine... as long as i start the ride with them completely pulled up so the top edge is a few millimeters away from the nose of the saddle... I'm ordering some DeFeet ones today... maybe i'll get lucky and find a set on sale. - well after that side diversion my coffee's ready and i'm positive there ain't a set on sale- well not positive but my searching turns up precious few online places that have Kneekers on sale... unlike the chrome knickers i really want these i'll prolly just get...

dAmn that was a tangent. I tried not to be but kinda wound up as the A group ride boss. There were three or four women who joined and two had little group experience and a smaller group formed after a lap or two, and when ride leader "Il Bruce" rolled off the back he didn't say outright that i was boss but i was bitching a few times and maybe that translated into me making suggestions about holding a line, or the NSP (never stop pedaling) when you are on the front of a paceline, even if you are just soft pedalling its better than not pedaling... and if you are going too fast rolling down - pull off and all that.

It was a classic double paceline, not the rolling and that caused some issue with the inside guys rolling back, esp for the inexperienced... But that's okay - the group was big, people were having a good time, a very social ride. Got in an hour and a half going in circles... and it progressively got faster and faster, and then Kipp Bradford joined in riding back from work on his fancy new Cyfac tigre (i think its the tigre) and wearing his Cyfac team kit. The problem with the cyfac logo is ya can FREAKING READ THE DAMN THING. Hello marketing people. Are yall wacko? Ya name ain't big enough to have some stylized bit of stuff. I had to go dig up the Bikereg.com results from the Battenkill Roubaix look through the Pro/1/2/3 men's results find Kipp's name, grab the registered team name, google it and finally wind up at the bike maker. how's that for freaking convoluted. And well he had a great story to go along with it - getting pushed by a pro on one of the turns into the deep sandy crap that took all his energy to get out of and gapped him and then in a group of 4 where only two were working and on and on - sounds similar to Solobreak's saga. And yeah he finished. That's true testament. Damn wusses who get off... okay those who get off and don't finish are still probably faster than me right now... but i'm sitting here and they aren't so i'm gonna call em wusses, cause for GD sure Kipp ain't no wuss. And he could prolly (no - definitely) kick my ass... and not just on the bike.

So where was i? Oh the BLVD ride. I roll up before it starts and people are waiting around. One kid there is wearing perforated athletic gym shorts and a t-shirt, and sneakers. bruce and a few others are giving him the "uh oh" look. He turned out to be pretty strong, bike position was a nightmare but he held his own even when the pace picked up. It never got fast mind you... Kipp and i were able to chat going up hill at the fastest pace, it wasn't tough but it was fast enough to put a few people in the red. So there's that guy, and then a 'commuter' shows up on his specialized with a rear SKS race fender all askew, two bottles, tail light, rain jacket, and aero bars. now nothing bugs me more than aerobars in a paceline ride. and granted he was old (and yeah old meaning 55+ probably) but his fancy bike was too short for his way up right position. He rode most of the time holding on the elbow pucks. Now i know yall have seen that type, and the guy in the middle of the freaking pace line - going Down hill - gets into his aero tuck. FREAKING HELL... coupled with the fred he was riding next too, a guy with an eclectic group of parts to be admired but not in a good way... A lemond frame from 5 year or so ago (red with white panels) Campy record rear freewheel hub, 6 speed cassette (maybe it was 7 but i don't think so), 600 rear derailuer, shimano down tube shifters set at friction and some Athena (I think i got the classification right - big flat wide lever arms) brakes. And he wasn't smooth at all doing the shifting, and setting the der for least noise. Kinda scary... that and he kept goign way out of line to avoid small bumps and shit.

ANOTHER problem, just ride over the shit unless it'll break your frame like one of the holes.... They are just fucking bumps.... don't fucking swerve...

Damn Phreds...

the yo-yo affect was in full force - some guys had trouble holding a line in a turn... but it was good - a nice social hang out kinda good ride and an extra 1.5 hours on the bike that i can add. I lamented to Kipp how reading the race reports from UVM, Canada, Battenkill all made me wanna jump in a race, but i commented the plan is to slowly build for cross and it was nice - he said that's a good idea still. Made me feel better.

H.S. this post has kinda rambled and run on and babbled. And all that with out touching politics, dennis leary or curious george our president. Maybe that'll be inspired later. Although the BioDiesel linkage might be taken as politics... its not its just something that makes me happy. Unlike the current state of my bumpers...

246,000 miles without hitting another car... 2k miles of being on the east coast and two people run into me. Neither of which i was in the position to do a GD thing about avoiding. And that's the truth it ain't something i'm making up... oh well - at least its all minor, its just a car, and there's little i can do about it all.

Just had a freaking brilliant idea... but since i just finished typin it out at TDIclub i'm gonna leave it there.

peace out for now...
i just remembered one thing i was gonna say and it deserves its own post... later...

thanks for reading
ciao-G

Ahhh - the afternoon

not sure what's prompting this post other than - its a good thing i got mine done before reading these two (one, two)... cause i'd have added a few pages to that list. Like the comments at #2 about GU packets - equal to cigarette packets... i ain't completely anti-smokers, just anti-smokers who litter the roadways.... For some reason i'm not feelin like getting *dennis leary* on yall... or Lewis Black or who ever foaming ranting comedian you wanna pick - hell pick Patrick O'Grady (mad dog) if ya want. And that's a good thing.

Or not.

Could be indicative of a slightly lower caffine level than normal -(paranthesis removed)- I skipped the early morning coffee cause the oldest is staying with my In-Laws this week for spring break, and that means i dont' have to get up at 5:45am... and it means i roll from bed to shower to heading to work (on the bike) and no time for making the morning pot (point at which parenthesis would have concluded but that would have been a stupid long aside - much like this).

Could be the lower caffine or the dehydration. that's kinda naggin at me. I'm thinkin that's it and it doesn't bode well for a ride this evening even if the ride is mellow slow and a 'no one gets dropped' affair. no point going out for any ride over 30 minutes in a dehydrated state.

Oh and about that one i mentioned (sue me - i'm covering them out of order) the wind, ahh the midwest wind. Ontario is very much like michigan, but from what it seems Ontario is a more successful region. Michigan's in the tank and from what i heard talking to a great friend out there is someone (GM) is flushing hard and it looks like they'll take the whole state with them. Getting outa there is good.

And another thing i could go off on from one is the heating oil stuff. I think i came across three or four mentions of it at races this weekend. Didn't ANYONE read delightful Dawn's article? Yeah it's not so bad at 55 or 50 degrees. And no ya won't prolly go hypothermic in those temps. BUT do you really want increased blood flow to the skin when you need every single hemoglobin to aid your VO2Max? Just a random thought not intended to be anything more than a thought or an observation, void of malice, filled with curiosity. Yeah i know its traddition, toe clips and straps were traddition as well. 36 hole low profile rims were tradditional too. Brooks Saddles... the list of bad tradditions in cycling is not short. And i guess we can add the drug using pro-ranks to the list of bad tradditions.

I found the Audioblogger.com button... i may give it a shout one of these days. In reality though thinking about it, i'm much better in the written word format. Not some mumbly hard to hear funny sounding guy. Although i can and do often turn on the diction and the volume, but that's kinda like stepping into a character... maybe i can do it- i might give it a try for the hell of it and to hear myself speak rather than read the words i write. Might be an interesting experiment. Maybe i need to type out the post and then speak it... (for the reading impaired 'readers').

I had a thought the other day - with all the blogger's getting press passes for everything, i wonder if i could apply for and get one for Interbike next year... not that i'll have the $$ to go but damn it'd be fun... although i'm sure i could ride the coat-tails of either the Washington Shop or the Michigan one... and that michigan one... i hear there are 35-40 people showing up for the club rides.... people are flocking to road bikes like crazy out there. That's cool. I just wonder if they were all just waiting for me to leave?

okay - enough kicking the keys around...

gonna end with an original photo...

The Egg Roll - you know the one that the same sex parents all tried to get to - well our president was photographed walking around greeting the participants...



note the secret service in the umbrellas...

(its a joke - and i don't care if i'm the only one laughing but its what i thought of when we were reviewing the photos on the camera in the car)...

on that note...

peace out

FRAZ-kaboom

man that stuff is funny - i've got the paper version of it but this digital- just as damn good if not better.

So the back end of the golf matches the front. the drive back up kicked ass - until i got rammed in the ass by a 'rolla (corrolla) driver.. She had two kids in the back - we were in the middle of 15 miles of stop and go in Connecticut - and wammao wamm wam... tripple hit.

Bumper is hosed but the sheet metal and the 1/4 panels are fine. Now the rear liscense plate looks like the front - hosed. F*ck....

GD hassle. Big GD Hassle. Freaking nuts. at least it wasn't a GD SUV that would have crumpled the hatch and the lights... matching bumpers wasn't so bad, just kinda sucked. Kinda? It freaking sucked hard.

No bike riding - a bit of drinking - and the weekend is done. two days sittin on my ass driving a car... I feel GREAT. Blah. NOT.

Time to bring back the Welcome Back Kotter quotes. This one from Vinnie makes me chuckle:

Vinnie: "Well, you little snow-capped leprechaun, it looks like somebody played Danny Boy on your face with an ugly stick."

The the "off my case potatoe face" definately takes the 'it might get use' prize...

ahh the 70s.... *record player scratching to a halt* WTF? "ahh the 70s" I think i have some dain bramage from the accident... I'm calling Lee Fee...

oh - did i mention the crappy cofffee this weekend? i'm back to enjoying my brew - and i'm gonna enjoy some more here as the 'puter restarts... i need a new puter... for personal stuff...

sometin small and light that works for haulin with the rest of my stuff in my bag... and yeah i'd LOVE to get hooked up witha chrome or a bailey bag, but i'm saddled with a Timbuk2, from back in the day when they had bags big enough and made for couriers... before they got all TitleNine trendy and shit. Hell i got a small one with the original logo and shit... none of the bells and whistles... I'd kill for some Chrome knickers but 'round here i'd be HEY NICE CLAM DIGGERS... although anyone who said that would get a pretty quick ass kicking - or not. despite the practical nature of them... i'm not nearly trendy enough to pull it off... yet... maybe, we'll see... maybe i'm just balking at the $125 price tag. For a pair of freaking pants. Yeah sure i'd pay that for a set of bibs and prolly will have to, but i can hit up Old Navy, buy 4 pairs of their crappy cargo pants, cut em off and have my own damn knickers... not at functional, not as cool, and ah fuckit - i want a pair.... i can't rationalize my way out of that shit. And i'm too damn lazy to "wikki link" the shit in this paragraph....

I wonder what happened in the world of the net - LFR is gorgeous and talented, adding a comment here but not much new... i've hit that site, but the rest... all unclicked links... Lunchtime clickin here i come!

peace out yall - drink a good brew - ride a bike - and smile...